


To Love in Vain

by sapphicalexandra



Series: It Comes and Goes [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (Alleged) One-Sided Love, Alternate Season/Series 03, Angst, Book Spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Parabatai, Parabatai Bond, swayed!Jace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11804769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicalexandra/pseuds/sapphicalexandra
Summary: Jace is in a dark 'parabatai-like' bond with Jonathan Morgenstern, and has lost ties with everything and everyone he loves. But what if he encounters his former parabatai, Alec?





	To Love in Vain

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who hasn't read the books it won't probably make much sense, but know that at some point Jace and Jonathan gets tied together into a 'dark bond' that is like a brainwashing/swaying for Jace, so he's on the 'dark side' now thinking he's on the good. I wanted to explore the dynamic he would have with Alec, since the books...didn't show it at all. Obviously, angst ensues...  
> EDIT: This fic is now part of a series called 'It Comes and Goes', as a sequel for my other fic called 'Oceans Between You and Me'. I know it might be confusing but it's for future purposes...basically, the people who had asked me for continuations should be satisfied ;)  
> Lyrics in the text are from the song 'Haunting' by Halsey

__

_**I   was   as   pure   as  a  river** _  
_**But now I think I'm possessed** _

They were ambushed by a handful of Shadowhunters, but Jace didn’t put much of himself into the fight that broke out. He didn’t need to – it was so _easy_ , cutting them down, one after the other. His old-self would’ve hesitated, downright _refused_ to face off against his former comrades…and that would’ve prevented him from winning. How _weak_.

No, Jace Herondale, the new, the reformed, the better Jace Herondale that he was now, with no more silly inhibitions such as _love_ or _honor_ to hold him back, was truly a force to be reckoned with.  

Finding himself face to face with the tip of an arrow was therefore merely a _surprise_. He hadn’t expected him to be there.

“If it isn’t dear Alec, my… _former_ parabatai.” Jace, sword in hand, raised his arms in a mocking gesture of surrender. “I’m afraid we’re _not_ on the same side anymore.”

Alec’s face was set, a mask of determination, but with something else swimming behind his eyes – probably something pathetic like s _orrow_.

“We’re _always_ on the same side,” Alec said, firm but _hoarse_ , as he lowered his bow.

Jace arched an eyebrow. “Are we, now? You’re saying that you want to defect to _our_ side?” His and Jonathan’s and Clary’s, the only side that would ever matter. Yet, Jace doubted that was what Alec meant, his own question to him nothing more than a provocation.

“No,” was, in fact, Alec’s reply. “We’re on the same side because we’re _parabatai_ , and we’ll _always_ be, no matter all the spells or tricks that might make you think otherwise,” Alec continued, _cracks_ in his voice.  

Jace smiled – _cruelly_ , if he said so himself. “You might be right. Being parabatai _is_ irreversible…too bad my former self didn’t think it through, when he chose to bind his soul to someone so _weak_.”

Alec blinked at the words, but his stony expression didn’t change. Jace, however, didn’t _need_ to see the hurt on his face to know that it was _there_ , and that his hit had had its effect. The way Alec’s grip on his bow _tightened_ only broadened Jace’s smile. “Unless, you want to prove me wrong. C’mon, _shoot me_.”

Alec’s arm twitched, but he didn’t raise it. “I won’t shoot you.”

Jace chuckled. “No? Well then, you want to fight with our swords? Careful though…you could never beat me.”

“I beat you, once,” Alec shot back.

Jace rolled his eyes, remembering the fight they’d had outside the entrance to the City of Bones an eternity ago. He had, obviously, _let_ him win, plagued by the _pain_ of fighting his own parabatai. He felt embarrassed for that Jace.

“But I _won’t_ beat you today,” Alec went on unrelented, “because I’m not going to _fight_ you.”

That said, he took his swords from their holsters, and threw them on the ground.

Jace’s eyes widened for a moment, honestly _surprised_ at that gesture...before resorting back to his smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Wow. Beside weak, you’re _stupid_ , too. How do you plan on getting out, then?”

“I don’t plan on it.”

Alec sounded sad, _tired_ even, and anybody else would’ve thought him _defeated_ …but Jace was suspicious. He advanced, slowly, towards Alec, his sword at the ready.

“You _don’t_? Do you realize that I could kill you any second?”

“I do.”

Jace was only a few feet away from him, when Alec dropped unceremoniously to his _knees_. He was holding his head high up though, a _challenge_ , and Jace’s eyes turned into slits, as he surveyed him carefully. He placed his sword against Alec’s neck.

“No matter what your plan is, no one can come here fast enough to save you,” he told him, spelling out his words, as if he was talking to someone with slow comprehension skills.

“No one is coming. So, _do it_ ,” Alec said. His eyes were wide, vulnerable, but on _fire,_ staring unblinking into Jace’s own. Jace could feel them starting to burn, but he didn't dare to blink, too. “ _I don’t want to be alive if we’re on different sides, Jace_.”

 _A flash. A sword to his throat. The familiar, beloved face above him set in a way that was_ unrecognizable; _it was_ painful _to look at it. "DO IT! I don’t want to be alive if we’re on different sides, Alec!"_

Jace gasped, his grip on the sword faltering against his will. The images in his brain _hurt_ , rushing to the surface, claiming his heart’s attention. But he pushed them _back_ , gritting his teeth until they started throbbing for the pain, his hand tightening around the hilt again, as he pushed the blade more forcefully against Alec’s neck. Alec flinched _,_ only barely _,_ when it bit his skin, drawing blood – but he didn’t budge. And a hot-white _fury_ flared up in Jace. “Are you trying to _trick_ me?! Is that what this is about?!”

Alec took his sweet damn time to respond, as he kept staring at Jace, _calm_ – as if it could be in any way possible for him to have the upper hand with a sword at his _neck,_  while Jace’s gaze _alone_ could’ve killed him! But Alec was reveling in the reaction he had caused in him, Jace could _bet_ on it. And by the time Alec spoke again, Jace was positively _fuming_ , mad with himself above all - for the fact that he had let on so much, and that _one_ sentence had been able to make him _relapse_. 

“There is no trick, Jace, just the truth. You used to feel the same, once…but you seem to already _remember_ that.”

Jace’s blood was _beyond_ boiling, his face the mask of his anger as he bared his teeth – only _hate_ in his heart for the man he had before him, nothing more. _How dared he_? “I remember, sure enough. I remember you _fighting_ me because you were in _love_ with me.”

Alec’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and that was all Jace needed to get the upper hand back... His smile came back in full force. “Hit a _nerve_? You’re telling me that your little self-sacrificial crusade right now is about _that_? You are still in love with him, with _me_ , after all this time...” And he started laughing, his entire frame _shaking_ from the mirth, even as he was careful enough not to let his blade move from Alec’s neck.  “You are a pathetic _fool_. Do you really think that _I_ , any _version_ of me, could ever love you _back_?”

Alec took a deep breath, his neck grazing against the blade so that a little rivulet of blood started falling from it, but he stayed otherwise still, wordlessly watching Jace’s amusement. Then, he smiled too, a little sad kind of smile. “Love…love is not there in the hopes of being loved _back_. It just _is_ , for no reason, with no condition, nothing to be _gained_. And you ask if I still love you?” He chuckled lightly. “When I’m _dead_ , and my soul has risen to the heavens…even _then_ I will love you, Jace Herondale.”

Jace felt as if a thick layer of _ice_ had placed itself over his face. He couldn’t move a muscle.

“And the Jace I know…Jace loved more intensely, more _deeply_ than everybody else. He did _everything_ for love, he gave his own _life_ , even when he thought it was making him _weak_. You might think it now, too...but there has _never_ been more strength in a person than when Jace _loved_. And I know you’re still that person, Jace.”

Jace huffed, but there was no real fire behind it. A vein in his temple was pulsing wildly. “If it helps you sleep at night…” But he could only say that in a whisper.

Alec was still holding his gaze. Lights were dancing in front of Jace’s eyes.

“Try all you want to forget it,” Alec pressed on, “but I _know_ it. I might not be able to _feel_ you anymore, you might be cut off from me, but you’re in my _soul_ , Jace. And I’m in yours.”

Jace felt an electric shock run through his body, and he was back in it, out of his _trance_. His shouts rang painfully in his own ears, “You mean _nothing_ to me! If I could squash that piece of your soul that I have in me, I _would_!”

“Then _do_ _it_!" Alec yelled back. " _Kill_ me! Prove it to me! If I really mean nothing to you, why am I not dead yet? You can only gain from it, you’d be free of _me_ …then why aren’t you _doing_ it?!”

Jace’s hands were, in fact, not moving. He was holding as still as never before, the blade in his hand neither going forward nor retreating. Why couldn’t he _move_?

But he did, when Alec _leaned_ into the sword... He pulled the sword _back_ , even if only slightly, the deeper cut that was opening up on Alec’s neck making his breath _quicken_ , inexplicably.

 _No!_ That wasn’t happening! Why was he hesitating to hurt _Alec_?

 _He’s in your soul_.

 _NO_. He had forfeited that life. Alec meant _nothing_. He had a _true_ parabatai!

Alec’s face was morphed by _fury_ , his teeth _bared_ , as he yelled at him once more, “ _Kill me,_ _I said!_ ”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

With a jolt, pushing Alec's chest with one hand _hard_ so that he ended up on his back, Jace removed the sword altogether…and he had stalked away – his breath echoing in his ears, the pumping of his heart constricting his chest – before the drops of blood on his blade even hit the ground.

The only thing he could hear, the fit of laughter (or was it crying?) coming from the place he had just left.

_**You   put   a   fever   inside   me** _  
_**And I've been cold since you left** _

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!


End file.
